Now, because of all these regulations, Drop Zones reserve high altitude jumps for special occasions, plan it out months in advance (to be sure to have oxygen available) and take reservations as well.
I’ve been waiting 2 months for this coming Sunday.
Why?
Because this Sunday is gonna be my 1st experience with it.
What’s so special about it?
Well, when you jump at 13500 feet, it takes about 1500-2000 feet to stabilize, and an extra 500-1000 feet if you’re in a group to start doing formations. Leaving you about 11000 feet to play with right?

Wrong!
You separate at about 4500 feet and release your canopy at about 3000-3500…

So that leaves only 6500 feet of freefall to “play” in…. Falling at 174 feet per second, that’s only 37 seconds…

When falling from 20000 feet, you still need the 2500 or so feet to stabilize and start formations, plus separation at about 4500 feet, but that still leaves you 13000 feet to have fun with… OR 74 seconds of freefall with which to do your formation… You’re effectively doubling your play time…
Now that’s a LOT of falling =)

It’s costing 85$ plus canopy rental (Unless I can convince a buddy to lend me his :P)
And it’s gonna be 85$ well spent!

Interesting how the rules for high altitude differ from Canada to the US. When I did mine at a boogie in Florida, we went up to 22,500 and had oxygen from 12,000 ft. on up to full altitude. Then you take it off and jump out. No need for oxygen on the way down.

But for us, rule is, oxygen is required above 15,000 ft. But it’s not uncommon for cool pilots to take a load of fun jumpers up slightly past that on occasion…which is nice.

AWESOME! Thanks Adam – that is defiantely part of my long-term plan, however – with the exchange rate it might take me a while to do it Especially since all my free cash now goes to jumping here well…that and beer!

Well, do what I do… Out of every pay I get, 15% goes to savings (long term)
at least 15% goes to debt repayment.
30%-40% goes to paying bills (rent, insurance, cell phone, etc…)
10% is put aside for travel
and the rest 20-30% goes to activities. (Skydiving and Snowboarding)

At least this way, I get some money for travel every once in a while…
I do use my Skydive $ to travel if the travel has to do with skydiving though